Santam partners with City of Tshwane to fight urban flooding

Santam, South Africa’s largest short-term insurer, is partnering with the City of Tshwane, to fight against risks associated with urban flooding in the capital City.

The initiative seeks to reduce flooding risks, minimise insurance losses, and create opportunities for skills development for unemployed youth, particularly in plumbing. Additionally, the project aims to foster sustainable partnerships between the City and Santam while serving as a model for replication by other corporates to enhance service delivery in collaboration with municipalities.

The pilot initiative, which targets high-risk areas identified by the City and Santam, involves collaboration between various city departments and Santam-appointed consulting engineering companies. It also includes the recruitment, training, stipends and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for ten unemployed young plumbers from the city's database, facilitated by the Tshwane Leadership and Management Academy (TLMA).

Additionally, the City of Tshwane will assess machinery requirements, with Santam committed to covering costs for hiring equipment as needed. The scope of work encompasses clearing rubble, fixing damaged stormwater systems, cleaning infrastructure, and data collection, contributing to both short-term mitigation efforts and long-term resilience-building measures.

Neptal Khoza, Head of Market Development at Santam says, like all densely populated cities across the globe, the City of Tshwane continues to battle increasing flooding risks and losses particularly in its urban centres due, amongst others, to blocked storm water drainage facilities, severe littering, and old existing infrastructure which is unable to keep up with growing demands.

“The recent update of the Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (CRVA) by the City highlights the severity of the situation, identifying flooding as one of the top three climate-related hazards projected to intensify over the next three decades. Such projections underscore the urgent need for proactive measures to address the growing threat of flooding and its adverse impacts on vulnerable communities,” says Khoza.

The Santam 2022/2023 Insurance Barometer Report revealed a concerning increase in flood-related claims across all lines of business, with events such as the April 2022 KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) floods and subsequent incidents along the Orange and Vaal Rivers in early 2023, as well as extensive flooding in the Western Cape around June, underscoring the risks faced by South Africa.

Through its Partnership for Risk and Resilience (P4RR) initiative, for example, Santam supports municipalities with firefighting and disaster management equipment, flood defence, community-level education and awareness initiatives, and other risk mitigation measures. To date P4RR has supported 92 municipalities across the country.